


Red threads

by Librarity



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Background Case, Don't Examine This Too Closely, Fate & Destiny, Happy Ending, Love at First Sight, M/M, Red String of Fate, Romance, Some dark moments, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-23
Updated: 2020-12-23
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:35:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28200978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Librarity/pseuds/Librarity
Summary: The Red Strings of fate brought together whomever they wished, drawing soulmates together in their own time.
Relationships: Lucius Fox/Edward Nygma, Oswald Cobblepot/Jim Gordon
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22
Collections: Gotham-X-Change-2020





	Red threads

**Author's Note:**

  * For [BlackArticFox](https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlackArticFox/gifts), [Inkfowl](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inkfowl/gifts).



> This is a bonus piece kind of intended for BlackArticFox and Inkfowl since both requested those ships. And I did soulmate AU. Enjoy!
> 
> Also, Jim's father still died, as a heads up.

Jim could still see the gleaming red string, forever trailing in his peripheral. Even after all these years, he could still see it and it was unchanged, just as bright, taunting him for all times. He doubted it would ever fail to do so, which was just his luck. He'd never had much luck in anything. If Lady Luck existed, she liked to ignore and avoid him.

That stark pop of red was a reminder of all the worst moments of his life, all the most painful things he buried deep inside and wished he could forget. But the glitter of red refused to allow such sweet mercy as memory loss, refuse to offer him peace. Even though it was coming up on Christmas and there was no shortage of glowing red items around, it was never enough to hide it. 

He'd been so young when his father died in the car accident, so young, confused, and afraid. He'd been afraid of dying there beside a man he always believed was indestructible, then he'd been afraid of the future without him. It was too young to come face to face with mortality. His mother hadn't exactly been stable, nor understanding, and that was frightening too. He was nine and the whole world seemed like it was over, nothing good left to be had. 

Except for that string. 

He felt it pulsing with worry while he was tossed like a rag doll upon impact; as realization dawned, shattering childish idealism in his young mind, that help wouldn't come in time; felt it even as things settled and he'd been pulled from the car by big, looming figures he could hardly make out through the blood in the dark even with flashlights bouncing around like rubber balls. 

In times of greatest distress, they said, sometimes a soulmate could feel hints of emotions even before they had ever met their partner, and Jim always thought that was what it had been. His soulmate, young as they must also have been, was helping in the only way possible. 

Whoever the string was connected to, he always felt terrible, broiling guilt for what he must have put them through. It had to have been terrible, knowing something was wrong, very wrong, but not knowing what. And then when...

"Jim?" Edward Nygma prompted softly, shyly, unsure he should, stirring Jim from his temporary distraction, "The report?" He shifted that incredibly long body around nervously, pushing at the black frames resting on his nose. 

Jim nodded, "Right! Yeah, I read it. That was good work! I think that's what we needed to nail him."

Ed beamed like he'd just been handed the world, hugging his papers to his scrawny chest, "Oh, that is heartening! I know you were anxious to make an arrest." He soaked up praise like a sponge and Jim always felt a bit sad to look into those big, eager eyes that hid so carefully behind those glasses. 

"I always... get anxious for cases like this," Jim admitted. 

Ed's expression turned sympathetic, "Yes, because you lost your connection to..." he stopped, seeing Jim's shoulders tense and expression darken, "Sorry, I didn't mean- it's not any of my- Good day, detective!" And he retreated, knowing he'd stepped on something he shouldn't. 

It wasn't Ed's fault, really. He wouldn't have lashed out the way Ed might have feared; he felt like curling up, in on himself, not lashing out. Ed was one of few people he had even told, aside from Harvey. He wouldn't have trusted anyone else in the precinct, though the Captain was well aware of it. Ed wasn't callous because he didn't care, simply because he didn't know how to be a human over a scientist.

He boxed up that empty, lost, despair and pushed it to the dark corner of his mind where it belonged. He couldn't have feelings like that at work. His time was to be spent on the case, not his own ponderings. He was a detective, not a waterworks. 

Shaking off the last of his melancholy, Jim took Ed's polished, cemented findings to the Captain, pleased they had good news on the case. As they went over it, he got that same sympathetic look from the Captain even if nothing was said, nothing hinted at or blurted out. Others would have been less gentle, he thought. It wasn't entirely public knowledge, but they were all detectives and they could read between the lines. They all guessed Jim took cases of cut strings harder because he had experience with it of some kind. 

They couldn't see that gleaming string trailing behind him, cut cleanly, there, but nothing more than a loose end. It was a reminder, but of nothing more than another loss to add to the list through his life. 

A little later on, the Captain asked him to take his findings to the District Attorney, Harvey Dent. It was offered mainly, he guessed, because it had been Jim's pet case. Everyone took it to heart, particularly since it was supposed to be a happy, joyful time of year rather than one full of tragedy, but Jim had been quick to take the lead on it. On this, Harvey didn't even try to get out of it, he was familiar enough with his partner's determination by now.

It was a comfort to see it through, helping to pass justice to those he could. There was a slight issue though, Jim realized as he pulled on his coat. His partner and usual transportation was gone, that being the case, after a moment of deliberation, he went to the lab.

Ed, as if to make amends, jumped at the chance to drive him. It was partly his case too, which was why Jim asked him. Additionally, he got along better with Ed than he did over half his coworkers besides Harvey Bullock. That was his usual lot in life, being on the outside. Actually, it was Ed's too.

They walked out of the precinct together, heading for the parking lot and no one so much as looked at them on the way. In some respect, he and Ed both stuck out in their surroundings but were also often entirely ignored. It was one of those conundrums of life. Or maybe he was just being morose. 

Ed wasn't running, exactly, but he was excited or nervous and had exceptionally long legs. "Ed, it's not a race," Jim promoted.

Ed came to an instant stop, pushing his glasses up his nose with one finger, "My apologies, I was a little over-eager."

"That's fine." Jim just wasn't in the best mindset. Maybe he was just testy, people often said he was prickly. 

Ed nodded like he did not know what else to do and started off at a slower pace, one not so much dependant on having mile-long legs. Though now that he'd done it, Jim regretted pointing it out. Ed was always so careful, walking on eggs shells even in his awkwardness, trying so hard to navigate a world he could never seem to connect with. He should let him at least walk the pace he wanted, but it was past praying now. That was another of Jim's flaws, speaking before he thought of the possible harm he might cause. In truth, he often caused harm when he didn't mean to. Maybe Jim was no better at connecting with the world than the lab technician. 

He couldn't exactly say he was sorry though, even though he was. Or maybe he was overthinking as per usual.

They climbed into Ed's car in silence and Jim leaned his head against the glass. He felt honestly wrung entirely out, spent of all he had to offer. The case had taken more of him than he had to give but he'd given it anyway. It was too close to home, one of those cases that were senseless suffering caused for sadistic glee, psychopaths that enjoyed destruction. It was illegal to cut the red string tying one soul to another, considered a crime not unlike murder. To cut the string was to sever the connection and leave the soulmates with no possible avenue to find each other.

Very few people could see the threads of other people, but there were those that could. But with that ability... came the ability to touch them, to cut the strings. It was hard to find such a person, harder to prove what they had done.

One could claim the mass event of severed strings had been from some natural occurrence, such as an accident killing the soulmates of many at once. However, there had been no such event in Gotham, and the soulmates had found their strings cut around the same time, in the same place, on consecutive days. It simply could not have been a natural occurrence, nor even an accident. 

It was a fact too, that even if Christmas brought good out in some, it brought the opposite out of others. 

They were fortunate to have Ed on their side, someone uniquely genius enough to find the links, to trace evidence left behind from a cutting. No one else would have thought to scour the area with ultraviolet light, various homemade chemical sprays, and black lights in search of the plasma-like substance, undetectable in normal conditions. Under the right conditions, with the right equipment, Ed had found a way and they followed it like a blood trail. In one regard, Ed's discovery was frightening, because it meant anyone with the right tools could conceivably do what only a select few formerly had the ability to. And yet, it enabled them to prove what had been done, a formerly invisible crime almost impossible to stop, and let them find the guilty party. Perhaps the good it could do outweighed the danger of it. Jim decided to believe that. 

That little invention was also how Ed had seen his own severed string. It hadn't been so difficult to tell him once it was there in full sight.

After his father died, his mother had not been entirely well; in truth, she never was well again. In her own twisted way, he supposed she was trying to help him when she used the deep pockets and deep connections of the Gordon family to find someone with the sight. He was thirteen when she found one. Even as he struggled, more desperate to get away than he'd known he could be, willing to do anything to stop what was happening, she looked on with dead, blank eyes. He couldn't understand why she would do such a thing to him, how she could hate him so much, stealing the only good thing left to him.

Her voice had been dull and matter of fact, unaffected by his weeping or pleas, " _Trust me, it's better this way. It is far better never to find your soulmate at all rather than to suffer when you've lost them."_

It still made him hurt, physically ill to remember that day. He could not compare it to any feeling, any pain he had before or since. Honestly, he had not been exactly mentally stable himself after it happened. It took... considerable time to be able to move on with his life again without that connection, without that hope. Even though he had never met them, it was as if he lost his own soul, had something integral _torn_ from him so violently he was sometimes convinced he'd unraveled a bit. He thought it must have felt like someone tapping into a nervous system and _pulling_ out veins until they _snapped_ under the strain; possibly like being gutted, having all ones organs pulled free. It still felt that way at times.

"Detective..." Ed cleared his throat.

Jim lifted his head, glancing at him, "I'm not really in the mood to talk."

But the string caught his attention suddenly. It was moving, swaying like a snake, caught in an invisible breeze. He watched it, stunned, trying to comprehend what it could possibly mean. Yet suddenly he knew, felt it, a certainty, instinctual. 

"Stop!" He didn't realize he'd shrieked it until he was thrown forward violently by the sudden force of the brakes.

"What is it?!" Ed asked, voice high and squeaky with panic.

Jim did not have the mind to do more than jump out of the car and break out into a full run. He didn't notice the other man swerving the car into a terrible rendition of a parking job, nor did he hear him yelling his name. Nothing mattered but following what he felt, the way the string moved, dragging him, pointing him onward. He would never really know how far he ran, he didn't know anything in the whole world beyond the pull.

He would never have noticed the shorter man with exotic features, dark, highly styled hair, and purple accented suit... except he was running too. Jim could see another cut string, swaying a pulling toward him the same way his was pulling desperately toward the other man. His blue eyes connected with wide green eyes and it felt like falling into home, light a candle in the dark. His feet might as well have never touched the ground, and maybe they hadn't, but their fingers closed the distance, locking together without thought. 

He gasped, delirious with the feeling as the strings connected, coiling together, reforming, healing the damage that rent them. They were clutching at each other, pupils blown, taking each other in, overcome, and not caring that neither knew the other's name. Names did not matter in the moment, all of that would come later on. Right now they could only touch and hold close what rightfully should have been lost forever, but in the most fortunate moment in their lives... fate was generous. A Christmas gift, perhaps. 

"I thought I lost you," Jim whispered, slowly becoming aware of the moisture on his cheeks and the reedy quality of his voice.

He heard his soulmate's voice for the first time, quiet and soft with wonder, and it felt like he would have known it anywhere, "I thought you were dead."

"I'm sorry I made you wait."

"You're here now, like a always dreamed you would be." His voice was so quiet, but Jim felt his words as much as heard them. 

Jim heard a bit of loud, heavy breathing just to their left and he had enough wherewithal to look and see Ed bent over, supporting his hands on his knees as he stared at them, huffing and puffing, glasses fogging over slightly. He wasn't ashamed to be clinging to a smaller frame, a lovely, svelte body he had yet to learn enough about, but he would spend the rest of his days studying. He did not care what they looked like, wrapped up in each other the way neither thought would ever be. 

No one could have dampened his glee as the man he was meant to find was in his arms. 

Ed's eyes were huge and full of wonder, and after a moment of staring, a baffled whisper left him, "For just a moment, I could see it... your thread... It's together again."

Jim laughed, something he rarely did, and it was bright, bubbly, and radiant with joy, "It is."

It was very possible he was in shock. He felt a lot of the symptoms of being in shock, but if it was, it also felt good, if terrifying. 

He looked back into those watery green eyes, and a sudden word was on his tongue in quiet prayer, "Oswald..."

Those rosy lips parter, creasing around flushed cheeks to make adorable laugh lines as he broke into a radiant smile, "James." He quickly ran his sleeve under a long, pointed nose to keep it from running, and Jim found it endearing. He would find anything endearing at this moment though, he would admit. He thought this person in his arms was glowing like an angel and nothing could have been so glorious.

"Umm..." Ed took off his glasses to clean them, "We might want to take you two somewhere more... fitting. This is a dirty alleyway." 

He was right. This wasn't the place for such a lovely man. He deserved far, far better and Jim was sorry he couldn't have met him in a fitting location. 

Suddenly, Jim had no idea what to do, where to go, his mind was blank. He couldn't very well take him to his dingy apartment, cold and damp as it always was, utterly unfitting for his soulmate. But he had no place else to take him. Judging by the look on Oswald's angelic face, he was unsure where to go as well. They had not planned for such an event and perhaps were each ill-prepared, spacially or mentally.

"My place is actually just a block from here." Ed continued as if oblivious to the turmoil they were experiencing, or perhaps not, "I'll drop you off there, take the files to Dent, and make excuses for you. You should have time to catch up and get to know each other properly."

Jim was so terribly out of his depth, and he felt raw and vulnerable, so the gratitude was a bit more openly on display, "You would do that?" He had no obligation to at all.

Ed smiled, sweetly innocent in his own way, "What are friends for?"

"Thank you. Whatever debt you require for this kindness, I will do my best to fulfill." It was striking how eloquent Oswald was, so well spoken even though his voice was still shaky.

Ed huffed and shook his head, "I don't require anything, I just know soulmates should have time to properly bond. Nothing more."

Oswald leaned into Jim's chest, breathing him in and he held him as close as he could get him without tripping them both as they made their way back to the car. Jim didn't notice the walk, in truth, he had eyes for only one. Nothing else in the world was comparable. 

He'd forgotten what joy, contentment, and connection felt like. He'd lived so much of his life under a grey sky of clouds, he had forgotten what it was to feel the sun, but it felt so wonderful he did not care if it burned him to cinders. For once in so many years, Jim felt hope and happiness. He had been simply existing, floating through life without settling. He had lost the concept of home as a child and never found it again, but now he knew, this was what it felt like to find a home.

* * *

Ed delivered the files from the Captain and hurried back. He was not exactly sure what he was supposed to do to cover for Jim, but covering for him seemed the thing to do so that he could spend the rest of the day with his newly acquired soulmate. Well, not newly acquired, just rediscovered. They were... watching them was... would you call it adorable? Heartwarming, possibly?

He'd never given much thought to the string connected to him.

That wasn't true, he'd given great lengths of thought to it and the sort of person on the other end. He used to spend hours imagining what it would be like to have someone that understood him, saw how odd he was but didn't care. He'd always dreamed, hoped, that they would be the one person that could love who he really was.

Over time he learned not to hope too much. His string might never find its other end, and if it did, there was always a chance they might not like being tied to him. No one else ever cared much for his company no matter how hard he tried to make friends, why should a string change that? Now it was more a point of stress than comfort as it represented another possible rejection.

Watching them though had made him... long for the possibility of a good outcome. He would take even a _moderately_ decent outcome, in fact.

A real friend would be enough. They didn't have to love him if they didn't want to do long as they cared a little. He could accept that. 

A few words drew him from his thoughts.

"Where is Jim Gordon?" A greying man asked Harvey Bullock, Jim's partner.

Harvey settled his hands on his hips, hat tilting to one side as he cocked his head, "Actually, nobody knows. Nobody's seen him for hours and he's not answering his phone."

Ed pretended to be absorbed in a file, but he chuckled to himself, as he knew full well where the man was. He knew why he wasn't answering his phone too. Honestly, reunited soulmates deserved the time away, to themselves, undisturbed. After all, what in all the world was as important as the sort of bond soulmates had? They needed time to be together. Everyone else would have to endure a day without the one detective that actually did work at the GCPD.

"Something funny, Ed?" Harvey asked, very clearly annoyed already, though annoying his wasn't hard at all. 

Oh, that was a misstep on his part, clearly.

The other man stood up, "Do you know where Gordon is?"

Oh dear. He should have stayed quiet. 

Attention was turning to him suddenly, so he turned further away, trying to seem oblivious and look at none of them. That would make him seem both less engaged and uninterested as well as hopefully innocent. Possibly. 

"Do you?" Harvey moved much closer, inerrant threat in it. 

Avoidance wasn't working. 

"Start speaking, windows."

Windows? What sort of insult was that? Though he supposed it was better than the usual four- eyes quip, though only for the quality of being unusual. 

Ed looked up at him accidentally, stammering, suddenly stressed at being under such scrutiny. He reverted to his best defense mechanism. "A diamond plate, a glowing grate, a place you never leave. Where am I?"

A third voice from a man he had not been turned enough to see suddenly spoke and his voice resonated all the way through Ed's body, "Home." The man said.

Ed turned, finding a tall, well-dressed man with dark silken skin and the warmest eyes Ed had ever seen in all his life. He was the most incredible man Ed had ever encountered in addition to having just answered his riddle, though he absolutely had not wanted it to be answered.

Ed's eyes swept him up and down, taking in the details of him. Relatively prominent forehead to indicate intelligence, and even hidden under the coat, he looked rather muscular in build, not unlike the subject of conversation. And he had answered his ride. 

Ed felt his thread pull tight, drawing his eyes to it and following it right to... He stared at it a long moment, studying, just to be sure his eyes weren't tricking him perhaps due to his former longing. However, the connection remained, visibly irrefutable.

The other man knew it too, might have seen if first, in fact. It made Ed shiver as the understanding really began to sink in. Before him was his soulmate. 

His breath caught, his heart fluttering with both terror and sheer, unadulterated joy. The string was tied to that already fascinating creature before him and he could feel the magnetism, their kinetic energy aligning. In fact, he might already have been moving closer, or maybe they both were, it was a little difficult to tell when his entire system felt like it was buzzing.

He couldn't be drunk or high, to his knowledge, so this must have been what love felt like. It felt warm, like a cup of coffee between icy cold fingers and he longed for more. This feeling could easily become addictive even if he was a little afraid of it. 

"You're home..." The man repeated softly, and perhaps no one else would understand, but Ed did. They weren't talking about Jim Gordon anymore.

"...Yes..." Ed couldn't help the way he smiled, deliriously happy maybe for the first time in his life. Few things in Ed's life had been kind, but looking into those eyes made him believe he'd found at least one.

Home. So that was what it felt like. Now he understood. 

**Author's Note:**

> This was just a quick story, I wanted to do some bonus fics just for extra fun for the holiday.
> 
> The ending scene I borrowed from cannon and twisted it around for my own enjoyment.


End file.
